nineteen
by paintinglies
Summary: out of her nineteen scars, seven of them are his and two he borrows out of spite. / one-shot


title: nineteen  
rating: T, for implications of sex and language  
summary: out of her nineteen scars, seven of them are his (and two he borrows out of spite).

a/n: wow, my first clato fanfiction. i love their dynamic and wanted to dab at their characters, since they're hardly the type to instantly save and protect each other, since they're raised as selfish, arrogant murderers. i've always wanted to explore that almost-relationship they had with each other, ever since someone pointed out the "cato kneels besides clove" scene, but was too afraid they would come out ooc and unrealistic. so here is my oneshot. i don't care if you write two words or a novel in the review box, all of them count. (though i would like to read your innermost thoughts about this.) enjoy.

_one_.

She was a bright-eyed five year old when she tripped on the concrete sidewalk and a shard of glass cut her knee. Holding back big salty tears, she clutched the injury and limped back home to her mother, where she cleaned the cut and bandaged it.

It healed a week later, but now if she looks hard enough, the faint crescent shaped mark is still there, a faint reminder of her young childhood and what came before.

_two, three, four. _

They are all "gifts" from her father. One happened when she was seven. The other two happened when she was nine.

These are the scars she hates the most.

_five._

(Her first battle scar is an ugly red thing that brushes the underside of her arm. )

The opponent's sword slices the soft skin on the inside of her arm but she refuses to be treated until the fight is over. Trickling blood had made seething red trails all over her left arm but she clenches her teeth and bares it out, because she doesn't think she can handle seeing her opponent's smug look as she is bandaged. Later, the medics give her ten stitches and tell her it will heal, but they look at her exasperatingly and add that the wound would not revert back to her skin color.

A couple of weeks later, it heals, but they had been right and she hates it; even now it is a rough, uneven mark that is easily visible if she twists her arm at the right angle.

It is his first scar on her.

_six, seven, eight, nine. _

They are nothing compared to the one before. A little nick near her ribs where a girl's arrow had almost pierced her skin. A sharp line down her palm from seizing her knife the wrong way. Another battle scar from a boy's name she can't even remember. Another nick from the bow and arrows.

She doesn't remember their names and she doesn't keep track.

_ten. _

She is barely thirteen when she fights him again, yet this time, her hand is more adept at controlling the weapons in her hand. He's strong, but she is fast, and it is a long and grueling battle between two stubborn fighters, until he catches her from behind and slices her inner thigh. This time the medics get to her in time to patch it up cleanly, but not before she takes her last knife and aims it at his bicep.

Of course, it lands right where she wants it to. But he simply pulls it out and tosses the knife in her general direction, smirking at her holding her thigh.

Three days later, she learns that he is to be confined to his bed for an infection from an untreated wound and she laughs to herself as she examines the deadly tip of the knife, still encrusted with his dried blood.

_An eye for an eye_, she thinks, and she falls asleep tracing the light scar on her thigh.

_eleven._

The day she comes in with an angry red mark down her cheek is the day everyone notices her. She feels their eyes glued to her right cheek, clear evidence that something had happened to her outside the Academy. She knows that scars made here are different from the scars made at home.

She doesn't expect for him to corner her and to demand to know what had happened.

_It's nothing_, she replies defensively, and she crosses her arms over her chest, maneuvering a well-practiced scowl onto her face.

He looks at her, and she thinks he sees a flicker of worry in his eyes, but it goes as soon as it comes. _You say you got into a fight with me and I scratched you, got it?_ She gives an ambiguous jerk of her head, but he takes it as a yes and stalks off to practice.

Later, when her personal trainer questions, she smirks and tells her she got into a spat with _him_. _Of course I won_, she says, the tone of her voice smooth and practiced. _You think I would lose to that arrogant ass over there?_

It's the small victories that count.

_twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. _

He takes her virginity on her fourteenth birthday. They fuck hard and good, and afterwards they lie in a pile of sheets and sweat as he counts her scars. Pressing each one, he numbers them in whispers, all the way up to eleven. Grabbing his sword (taken from the Academy, no doubt), he presses it into the dip of her hipbones and leans down next to her ear.

_Twelve_.

The curve of her barely-there breasts. _Thirteen_.

The dip in between her neck and collarbone. _Fourteen_.

_One for luck_, he smirks, and carefully carves a _C_ on her skinny arm. _C_ for Cato. _C_ for Clove. _C_ for Careers, the ones who will win.

(The fifteenth scar is her favorite.)

_sixteen. _

They're not a sappy love story. He's not her boyfriend, and she's certainly not his _girlfriend_, and she hates him when he tries to hold her hand or tell her she's beautiful, because she's not just another girl that he can charm to obey his wishes.

So when he sees the long scar that runs the half the length of her back, she hates him.

_What is this_. He's boiling with anger, and she immediately regrets going to bed with him, because _ohgodhowcouldsheforget_.

_It's nothing_, but she knows she gives it away by swatting his hand away harshly, trying to turn her back to the bed.

(And she hates all of this. She hates him, she hates how he knows her, and she hates that stupid fucking scar on her back that her father had given her a month ago.)

_I'm going to kill him_, he growls. _I'm going to kill him and you can watch. _

He flips her over on the mattress and like always, they become a wreck of lips and skin and blood, but this time, it feels different.

She hates it.

_seventeen. _

She's much too blonde, much too pretty, and _much_ too flirty. Glimmer, it's a stupid name yet she thinks she's better than everyone else, and frankly, it's fucking annoying. She watches as Glimmer glues herself to Cato, batting her eyelashes and laughing at everything he says, flaunting her curvaceous figure at every angle possible. She tells herself that she's doing everyone a favor when she sends a knife Glimmer's way on their watch, and convinces herself that it only happened to be a coincidence that it was right after Glimmer decided to sit in his lap. Unfortunately, she dodges and lunges for her, clawing her neck until it bleeds. They fight until the boys pull them off of each other, both knowing that it would be silly to lose valuable allies this early in the Games.

Later, he pulls her off to side and scolds her. _What was that about?_

_She's a fucking whore and no one likes her_.

He rolls his eyes, sighing loudly in the dark. _Grow up, will you?_

Those scratches on her neck leave the biggest scar of all.

_eighteen._

It takes an hour of reasoning with him to let her go the feast. It hadn't been easy; twice he pulled out his sword on her, reopening a scar on her chin that he gave her on his eighteenth birthday.

_Fine_, he spits, _but don't expect me to go and fucking save you when you die. _

She smirks, wiping the blood off her chin with the back of her hand. _As if, you know I always win._ She pauses momentarily. _Unlike you._

Instead of the fiery retort she was expecting, he puts a finger to her cheek, and she thinks she sees the faintest spark of adoration in his eyes and it instantly sends something warm in the pit of her stomach. (She doesn't like it.) But it leaves, and he gives her a jeering grin and slugs her in the back. _Bitch_.

Her heart eases, because this is what they are, their emotions are in her knife wielding and his strength, and she likes it better this way. They're not crying lovers who will die and sacrifice for each other; they don't put up with any of that _I love you_ shit.

At the lake, she examines the blood flowing freely from the cut. _It's supposed to stop now, why hasn't it stop? _

Uneasiness fills her chest.

_nineteen._

This wasn't supposed to be her death.

She was supposed to be beautiful, with a knife carving hundreds of bloodied designs on fire girl's skin, with her blood staining the ground, where the Capitol would later make a small plaque signifying the death place of the poor District 12 tribute. She was supposed to be the last two with _him_, regardless of the rule change, where she would put the greatest show of all for Panem, and where he would give her the last scar of all.

Her nineteenth was supposed to be an ugly bruise that would slowly fade as she died.

Her nineteenth was supposed to be his.

(Because those were the only scars that ever mattered.)


End file.
